


Begin to Hope

by hikaru



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: springtime_gen, Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaru/pseuds/hikaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fear and hope can do strange things to the way you see the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Begin to Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Written for author_by_night

_Before._  
All was well, all was going to plan. The Dark Lord prepared himself to eliminate the infant who was the subject of the prophecy. He felt no remorse for what he was to do; remorse was not in his lexicon of emotion, so to speak. It was a _human_ emotion, and to him, human equaled _Muggle_ , being human was akin to being the lowest of the low. He was Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the most feared wizard since Grindelwald himself attempted to dominate the wizarding world. He was no mere _human_ , and he had no need for such feelings as remorse.

His followers waited for confirmation that this _obstacle_ had been taken care of. The Potter boy was nothing more than that, just an inconvenient Mudblood roadblock in the way of true progress. Best to destroy him now, ensure that he never has the chance to grow to be a threat, and with him, destroy the hopes of the resistance.

As the Dark Lord prepared to take another step towards his goal, some of his followers had become overly bold. For some, it was a fanatical devotion which led them to be less than subtle about their allegiance. For others, it was quite simply down to sheer stupidity. Lucius Malfoy felt that he fit in neither of those camps. He led a double life in a sense, exhausting but well worth it. He was still a respectable man in society, a husband and father, a successful man by all accounts, but he was also a devoted follower of the Dark Lord, of his ideas of blood purity, dark magic, wizarding superiority. Someday, he hoped to be able to cast aside these dueling identities and make them into one – a respectable man in a society which values blood purity above all else – and he hoped that day came soon.

 _And then._  
No one wanted to believe it. The Dark Lord, brought down by an _infant_? It was preposterous, but it became clear all too quickly that while James and Lily Potter were dead, their son Harry lived and the Dark Lord was nowhere to be found. Dead, defeated, destroyed; the fading Dark Marks on the arms of his followers all but confirmed what his Death Eaters had been reluctant to believe.

All that work for nothing. Without the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters were aimless, leaderless, and soon, everything crumbled. It wasn't difficult to identify Death Eaters, and everyone quickly turned on one another, teeth bared, lies mixed with truth mixed with fear, everyone desperately trying to avoid Azkaban. Lucius lied, and lied well.

"I was under the Imperius curse," Lucius steadfastly insisted.

"And who cursed you?" Crouch asked. Crouch, and the Wizengamot with him, was suspicious. The Malfoy family didn't exactly have a reputation as lovers of Muggles and world peace.

Lucius blinked. He may have been determined to stay out of Azkaban, but he wasn't a traitor. He wasn't about to take the same path as Karkaroff, spilling Death Eater secrets to save himself. "I'm afraid to say that I don't know," he said, a note of regret creeping into his voice. "I've truly no recollection. It pains me to suggest it, but perhaps someone at the Ministry?" He would at least _pretend_ to be helpful.

"And you say you cannot identify any other of these _Death Eaters_?" The words fell from Crouch's mouth with disgust.

"None whatsoever," Lucius responded solemnly. "I wish I could provide more information for you, truly." The Ministry had more than its fair share of Death Eaters to try and convict. They didn't need Lucius' help.

The Wizengamot deliberated shortly before returning their decision, not guilty due to the Imperius curse. And if there were more than a few men and women passing judgment that day who'd found their pockets lined with gifts from the Malfoy estate in exchange for just a bit of compassion, well, what of it? Think of it as insurance, in case Lucius' carefully prepared yet utterly fabricated testimony failed to do its job.

 _The in-between._  
Life went on, even without the presence of the Dark Lord. Lucius continued to rise in the ranks of the Ministry, where a few Galleons pressed into the palms of the right people helped to more easily pave the path of his upwards trajectory. Draco continued to be brought up with the very best that the wizarding world had to offer. As the world slowly returned to normal and suspicious eyes turned elsewhere, Lucius and Narcissa talked about other children, in hushed tones and suggestions, but it was not to be, and Draco remained their first and only cherished son.

For Narcissa, it was Draco around whom the world revolved. Something changed for her as she watched her son grow. Oh, she still played her part perfectly, as the wife of a prominent man of society and as a daughter of the most noble and ancient house of Black. She still held the same beliefs, about wizarding superiority and blood purity and the decline in society so obviously associated with all of these blood traitors. But the constant murmur of war, of finding a way to resurrect the Dark Lord so he could reign again – more often than not, it all left a sour taste in her mouth, left her with a nagging fear that someday, death could come back to touch her family, could take away her son or husband in an instant. It almost – _almost_ – made her sympathetic to the Order, to all of the death they'd experienced, all of the children left orphaned, the families that were ripped apart.

Almost, but not quite. _They_ were all still traitors.

Lucius, he was free to do as he pleased, he could search for the Dark Lord or find way to sabotage pro-Muggle policies, he could serve the Dark Lord even when all hope seemed lost. Even if he didn't want to, he nearly had to out of a sense of obligation; being not only a marked Death Eater but also one of the most prominent meant that it was practically expected of him.

But Narcissa knew what she would choose if forced to choose between the safety of her family and her own devotion to the Dark Lord. It was akin to treason to even think it, but she knew, and hoped she would never have to act.

 _The beginning of the end._  
War was on the horizon. The Dark Lord was back, but nothing was the same as before. Lucius was jailed for his _failure_ , and Narcissa and Draco were left on their own to atone for the sins of the father, as it were.

In a sense, it made her more bold than ever. She had no need to lie and protest and evade when accusations of _Death Eater_ were hurled her way. No matter that she'd never taken the mark like her husband; to the rest of the _common people_ , she might as well be wearing the mask and the Dark Mark like her husband and sister and so many others. And now, with Lucius jailed, with there being no chance of claiming that he hadn't been acting of his own volition, she saw no need to pretend to be anything other than what she was.

So she walked with her head held high, ignoring the whispers, the taunts, the jeers. She was a strong woman, and the words hurled at as she went about her business in Diagon Alley meant nothing to her.

But she could only maintain the facade for so long, especially after the Dark Lord, drunk with power and thirsty for revenge, set Draco to a most impossible task.

There were some things that Narcissa couldn't do on her own. She couldn't carry Draco's burden on her own shoulders; she wasn't too proud to admit that she couldn't carry out the task asked of her son.

There was only one person she dared trust to help her son, only one person who she trusted not only to help Draco, but to not turn on her for daring to express her fear.

Fear, that's what it was.

Strange, Narcissa thought, to finally feel real fear after so long.

 _Finally._  
Everything came down to this, one terrified woman crouched in front of the prone form of a boy.

"Tell me whether he is dead."

He wasn't. She could tell that already as she approached. She might have been afraid – for her life, her husband's, her son's – but that didn't mean that she was _stupid_.

"Is Draco alive?" she asked as she crouched over Potter, voice barely audible. "Is he in the castle?"

"Yes."

That was all she needed. "He is dead!" she proclaimed to the Dark Lord.

She never would have thought, all those years ago during the first war, that she would ever stand before the Dark Lord and lie to him. She lied to him, though, proclaiming Potter's alleged death for all to hear, because now, she felt something new, something taking the place of the fear that had lived with her as a constant companion for so long. She felt _hope_.  



End file.
